Mitt Romney doesn't intend to overturn Obama's policies on homosexuals in the military. He doesn't intend to end Obamacare, and his Republican friends in Congress just fully funded it via the continuing resolution. He doesn't intend to overturn Obama's illegal usurpation/amnesty for illegal aliens. He fiercely supports the unconstitutional entitlement programs that are the centerpieces of the New Deal and the Great Society. He supports the judicial supremacist abortion on demand status quo. Like Obama, he panders to the Islamists, apparently hoping the crocodile will eat him last. Bottom line? He's an echo, not a legitimate choice for conservatives.-- Tom Hoefling, October 3, 2012

...The latest possible trial balloon came this past Monday in an interview with Larry Kudlow. In that discussion, Romney relates the situation in Aurora, Colorado to his time in Massachusetts when he was able to ban weapons such as the AR15, one of America's favorite sporting rifles.

First, he consistently affirms RomneyCare, the massive government intrusion into healthcare that was the blueprint for Obama's massive government intrusion into healthcare. Sadly, Romney's health care plan included many items absolutely unacceptable to social conservatives. His continuing support for his program has many conservatives legitimately wondering if he intends merely to "fix" ObamaCare. Perhaps he thinks it would be better if just a little more in his own image.

Next, and only this past April, was Mitt Romney's support for gay couples. Compounding that problem was his assertion that gay couples should be allowed to adopt children. There are compounding problems with that, too. Mitt Romney has long had a special relationship with the gay-agenda wing of both parties. He has in the past given those advocates special assurances that he is the man they want in office. Just this past week, when Obama permitted military uniforms to be worn in a gay pride parade, there was no protest from Mitt Romney that this author can find. (Since pro-life chaplains can't march in pro-life parades in uniform, one wonders at the double standard.) To cap this off, during the debates, Romney indicated he was just fine with permitting open homosexuality in our military.

Now we have the governor who instituted strict gun control on "offensive weapons" reaffirming that decision. But that is not the critical part of the message.

Mitt Romney actually said on Monday -- this past Monday -- that when he can get legislators to agree on gun control, then "that's the kind of legislation I like."!

I can't help but dissect "that's the kind of legislation I like." What does that mean? Does it mean he's all in favor of signing gun control legislation if he can get legislators to originate it? That way, of course, he wouldn't be the only one taking the heat.

Does that mean that he doesn't really have a core value opposing gun control, that he'll sign on if he's not the only one with his neck on the line?

Trial Balloon or undisciplined comment?

You be the judge. But, you also better be careful, and make sure Romney never has a large enough group of RINOs to team with democrats to bring him gun control legislation.

"Deadly assault weapons have no place in Massachusetts," Romney said, at a bill signing ceremony on July 1..."These guns are not made for recreation or self-defense. They are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people."

One of the few Republicans in the country who's been tirelessly pushing for the implementation of Obamacare at the state level has been tapped to head Mitt Romney's transition team, should he become president.

Former HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt, and his consulting group Leavitt Partners, are the primary advocates within Republican circles for implementation of Obamacare's exchanges. It just so happens that his consultancy is one of the major beneficiaries of the taxpayer funded gold mine of hundreds of millions of dollars in exchange implementation grants.

The real news in Mitt Romney’s interview with Mark Halperin, as Charles Pierce points out, is that Romney openly repudiated the central argument his party has been making against [Alleged] President Obama for the last three years: that he spent too much money and therefore deepened the economic crisis. Indeed Romney himself had been making this very case as recently as a week ago (“he bailed out the public sector, gave billions of dollars to the companies of his friends, and added almost as much debt as all the prior presidents combined. The consequence is that we are enduring the most tepid recovery in modern history.”) But in his Halperin interview, Romney frankly admits that reducing the budget deficit in the midst of an economic crisis would be a horrible idea:

Halperin: You have a plan, as you said, over a number of years, to reduce spending dramatically. Why not in the first year, if you’re elected — why not in 2013, go all the way and propose the kind of budget with spending restraints, that you’d like to see after four years in office? Why not do it more quickly?

Romney: Well because, if you take a trillion dollars for instance, out of the first year of the federal budget, that would shrink GDP over 5%. That is by definition throwing us into recession or depression. So I’m not going to do that, of course.

"The principal arguments in support of independence may be comprehended under the four following heads.1st, The natural right of the continent to independence.2d, Her interest in being independent.3d, The necessity,- and4th, The moral advantages arising therefrom.

…

"IV. But what weigh most with all men of serious reflection are, the moral advantages arising from independence: war and desolation have become the trade of the old world; and America neither could nor can be under the government of Britain without becoming a sharer of her guilt, and a partner in all the dismal commerce of death."

--Thomas Paine, The Crisis, 1777

The principal arguments in support of conservatives’ independence from the Republican Party may be comprehended under the four following heads.1st, The natural right of conservatives to political independence.2d, Our interest in being independent from the Republican Party.3d, The necessity,- and4th, The moral advantages arising therefrom.

But what weigh most with all men of serious reflection are, the moral advantages arising from independence: War against unborn humanity and desolation of the traditional family have become the trade of the Grand Old Party. (If any man be in doubt of this fact, he need only look to the record and even the stated positions of the man whom the party is working so hard to nominate: Mitt Romney supports the destruction of the traditional family, in favor of the radical homosexual agenda. And he denies that the right to life of the unborn is unalienable and unconditional, proclaiming instead that it is an issue for the states to decide. If the states are the proper arbiters of this matter, then the right to life is neither unalienable nor unconditional--it is utterly conditioned on the will of the state, and completely severable at the whim of the people!) Conservatives neither could nor can be under the leadership and influence of Romney Republicanism without becoming a sharer of that party’s guilt, and a partner in all the dismal commerce of death.

'Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain.'

Tom Hoefling on Government:

"Just as 'good fences make for good neighbors,' good government is mainly about knowing where the legitimate boundaries are, and having the courage to defend those borders forcefully. This is true in terms of the defense of our territory, our security, and our national sovereignty, but it also applies to the sworn duty of all of those in government to equally protect the God-given, unalienable rights of each individual person, from their creation onward, their sacred obligation to stay well within the enumerated powers of our constitutions, and of the role legitimate government must play in balancing the competing rights and interests of the people, in order to establish justice."